Natural Fragrance ideas, help please :)

[Saponista]

I am participating in a soap swap where you have to use local produce and ingredients in your soap. I was thinking of doing a Devon cream tea soap so I am going to add some clotted cream and some local strawberry jam to my batter. I'm stuck with fragrance though, I don't want it to be unscented but it has to be a natural fragrance as that is one of the rules. Any suggestions of what might work would be gratefully received. I don't think I can afford to shell out for vanilla absolute so my options are pretty limited.

 

[coffeetime]

Are essential oils not allowed?

 

[TeresaT]

chamomile and lavender! It makes a great tea (one of my absolute favorites, in fact) and an awesome soap. Plus, the EOs are relatively inexpensive. One of my first not-water soaps was made with my extra strongly brewed chamomile-lavender tea and some chamomile & lavender EOs thrown in for fragrance. Loved that stuff. Now I need to make more...

(I hope this gives you a bit of a idea or push in a direction you want to go.)

ETA: I just read coffeetime's post. I didn't think of that.

 

[coffeetime]

If you mixed a pink grapefruit EO with a ylang ylang, you might be able to achieve a fruity floral that would complement.

 

[mintle]

Davana EO is a very expensive, but beautiful smelling one - like prunes and wine and berries. Have not tried it in soap, though - I use it only in perfumes. It is available in fairly reasonable (still high) prices for example in geman store dragonspice.de or french proxisante.com.

There is another german store where they sell perfume oils for natural cosmetics, so natural blends. I often buy essential oils from them. They have vanilla bean quite reasonably priced:
http://www.manske-shop.com/Parfuemoele-fuer-Naturkosmetik/Natuerliches-Parfuemoel-Vanilla-Bean/
and Pomegranate which should be sweet:
http://www.manske-shop.com/Parfuemoele-fuer-Naturkosmetik/Natuerliches-Parfuemoel-Pomegranate-Granatapfeloel/

And also many others in the Parfumole for Naturkosmetik section. The INCI says "Fragrance" but the store is trustworthy and I believe these are just natural blends. I buy Baby Balm and Vanilla Bean from time time and they are decent, the first one not very strong.



BTW I think you have shared a link for this swap and I have signed up, but never got the message back and now I cannot even find the site (it was in french&english, wasn't it?)

 

[dixiedragon]

chamomile and lavender! It makes a great tea (one of my absolute favorites, in fact) and an awesome soap. Plus, the EOs are relatively inexpensive. One of my first not-water soaps was made with my extra strongly brewed chamomile-lavender tea and some chamomile & lavender EOs thrown in for fragrance. Loved that stuff. Now I need to make more...

(I hope this gives you a bit of a idea or push in a direction you want to go.)

ETA: I just read coffeetime's post. I didn't think of that.

Chamomile EO? Not FO? Chamomile EO is almost $60 for 1 oz at Camden Grey.

ETA: My vote would be for cinnamon and/or clove EO. Inexpensive, although they do seize very badly!

 

[galaxyMLP]

I was thinking maybe benzoin resin? It's supposed to be vanilla-like but it is relatively inexpensive and is supposed to stick in soap (haven't tried it).

I read it's also a possible irritant in high amounts though. I was thinking benzoin, a smidge of cinnamon and grapefruit would be nice.

 

[green soap]

Not quite what you are describing, but if you are able to change it to a Chai tea, I have gotten a LOVELY scent blending the usual suspects in EOs: cardamom, cinnamon, clove, black pepper...you already have the cream for the milk.

Not sure how the strawberries would work. They will probably not contribute scent or color (tan?) and getting a strawberry scent with EOs seems daunting.

Let us know what you end up doing!

 

[TeresaT]

Chamomile EO? Not FO? Chamomile EO is almost $60 for 1 oz at Camden Grey.

ETA: My vote would be for cinnamon and/or clove EO. Inexpensive, although they do seize very badly!

Nope. It was Chamomile EO. I bought a bottle at my local Whole Foods for about $15 or $20 (it was 1 oz, I think). The lavender was less than the chamomile, though. I do remember that. There were different types of chamomile and different brands. I went with the cheapest one. I was getting all of my EOs at Whole Foods before I started using FOs. ("Relatively" inexpensive. I wouldn't mind paying $20 for an oz of EO. I wouldn't pay $60 for an oz of EO, though. It's all in your perception of what's expensive to you. I spent $8 for shipping from South Africa. I complained about $5 shipping from New York. :wink

 

[Saponista]

Oh wow, so many wonderful and really helpful responses from all of you. I knew you wouldn't disappoint me! I had completely forgotten that I have left the tea out if my cream tea soap and my favourite is earl grey and lavender so I might try adding some bergamot and lavender EO's with a tea infusion in the water. The strawberry jam was really just to add some sugar to the bars, and you can't have a cream tea without it, I don't expect the colour to hold, but I thought it might just give part of my soap a slightly darker brown colour. I am really interested in that website mintle, thank you for sharing, I will go over and have a look at all the different products. I have not some across anything similar. I have also never heard of the fruity essential oil you mentioned so I am going to go and look it up. I got an email about the swap today so you should have received one too mintle? If not send me a PM and I will send you the email address of the organiser. I love all the other ideas of the spicy scents too and the benzoin (I'm sure I have some in my stash thinking about it...) I think I will make some different fragrance options up in little bars and see which is the best. Thank you so much for all your help, I was at a complete loss and now I have too many ideas!

 

[snappyllama]

If you want to go naked, I'd go for pumpkin puree. It gives a *very* light sweeter smell than plain naked soap. i mean, it's really light. But it is noticeable when you compare it to plain naked.

 

[dibbles]

Bergamot and lavender sounds so nice. For what it's worth, I once blended grapefruit and ylang and while it was a beautiful combination, it faded to nothing very quickly. I ended up donating it.

 

[Saponista]

Here's my finished soap containing strawberry jam and clotted cream. Coloured a touch with pink clay and scented with bergamot, mandarin, lavender, litsea and vetiver. My first circling Taiwan swirl. I needed a fine pattern as the bars have to be cut fairly small for the swap.

 

[dixiedragon]

Very nice!

 

[Earthen_Step]

Those are nice looking, great job! I love the natural look to it, it looks like homemade strawberry ice cream.